


tipping scales

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, oneshot with additions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-07-28 20:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16249277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: An early morning emergency wakes Jemma and Grant.





	1. lovers

It’s four in the morning when the alarm starts going. Not the big, wake everyone on base alarm, the quieter one that means individuals are being called.

“No,” Jemma moans into her pillow. She was up until one studying the samples the team brought back from Western Australia; it’s far too early to open her eyes.

“It might just be for me,” Grant says. As he was far more sensible and fell into bed almost immediately after the Bus landed, he’s more awake than her now. When he tries to shift to one side to reach his phone, she tightens her arm around his waist, pulling herself more fully on top of him.

“No,” she says again.

She can feel his chest shake with silent laughter. “Jem. It’s an alarm. It’s important.”

“ _Sleep_ is important.”

“And you can still do that if it’s just for me. Come on, let me-"

She holds him tighter, not enough to aggravate the cut he sustained on his side, but enough to act as a warning. “You’re _warm_.”

He laughs again, this time openly. She’s just thinking of really pressing on that cut when one of their phones goes off. He uses the distraction to roll them so she’s on her back and the nightstand is easily within his reach.

“Cheater,” she says. Her eyes are open now. Sleep might as well be a distant memory.

But with her eyes open she can see his face lit up by the phone display. Guilt claws at her while his jaw tightens and she pushes herself up, knowing that even if he is the only one being called on, she’ll follow regardless.

“It’s the monolith,” he says.

As it’s four in the morning with only her soulmate to hear, she doesn’t resist the impulse to curse.

 

=====

 

There are two of them this time. Women. And, unlike before, they’re immediately recognizable.

“I,” Skye says slowly, “am a _badass_.” She circles her double, who’s outfitted in form-fitting tactical gear that’s a far cry from the ice cream PJs Skye has on. “Did you know I was this cool?”

“Skye,” Jemma says, half an admonishment, half a plea that she’ll come away from them. Not that Jemma sees any reason to fear their visitors, it’s just … odd.

“Skye?” the other Skye asks, looking strangely wounded.

“You look awesome too!” Skye says over her, now standing beside Jemma’s double. Unlike Skye’s, she appears dressed for a night out. High heels, bold make-up, red leather jacket. But the heels aren’t so high as to impede an escape and the jacket would be ample protection in a hand-to-hand altercation. Not to mention it also hides the gun holstered under her arm.

Jemma’s been in the field—more than she’d like, honestly, ever since the uprising threw things into chaos—and she knows how to handle a firearm, of course, but this other her seems comfortable with it all in a way Jemma never has been. She leans back into Grant’s ready warmth behind her. His hand wraps easily around her hip, a steadying weight.

It doesn’t escape her notice that the move doesn’t escape the notice of her double.

She pulls her attention away from her—best not to focus too long on something so intimately disquieting—and settles it on Skye’s double. “Is something wrong?” she asks.

She blinks, shaking her head in a way that can’t be termed a denial. “It’s just- I go by Daisy.”

“Oh,” Skye says. “Well that’s cool too. I guess it makes sense we wouldn’t all pick the same-”

“No,” Skye’s double- Daisy says quickly. “That’s my name. Daisy Johnson.”

Now Skye’s the one who looks wounded. She looks to Jemma and Grant, emotions flickering across her face too quickly to be named. She returns to their side of the room and Jemma reaches for her, catching her hand to squeeze it gently. It’s nice to have her away from their guests, but seeing her excitement with the situation dwindle so swiftly is difficult.

“I’m sorry,” the other Jemma says. “But you all seem rather nonplussed by this situation. Can we take that to mean you knew the monolith was a passage to another universe?”

Jemma takes Grant’s hand from her hip so that she can wrap his arm more completely around her waist and lace their fingers over her stomach. “Can we take that to mean you didn’t?” she asks.

Her double’s mouth thins. “No. We thought- Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

Daisy sighs heavily. “We’ll have to find another way to get rid of Hive.”

“Hive?” Grant asks.

Both of their guests frown at the question. “Yeah,” Daisy says. “He’s this super powerful Inhuman who wants to take over the world. He _was_ banished to another planet but Hydra brought him back using one of the monoliths. We were hoping this one would lead to another planet we could strand him on. But I guess not.”

“We wouldn’t appreciate that,” Grant says, his voice tight.

Daisy and the other Jemma both open their mouths to respond to that—while Jemma herself merely pinches the back of his hand; what is he thinking?—but are prevented by Coulson’s return.

“Well, Fitz is working on it,” he says. He smiles apologetically at their guests. “I’m afraid we do have the means to return you to your universe, but we’ve never actually had to use it, so everything’s gathering dust in storage.”

“If you’ve never had reason,” the other Jemma asks, “how would you know the monolith was a portal and can you _please_ stop that?” The first half of the question is directed—rather politely—at Coulson, but the rest is an aggravated plea aimed at Jemma and Grant.

“Stop what?” Grant asks. Jemma twists to better see his face. That is definitely his innocent tone, one which usually comes after he’s committed an especially wicked prank.

The other Jemma gestures at them. “Stop—touching—me— _her!_ ” She makes an ugly sound like she’s trying to clear her throat after eating something disgusting.

“It is kinda gross,” Daisy agrees. She even gives her Jemma a consolatory pat on the shoulder.

Grant’s made no sign of moving—in fact, his grip on her has tightened—but Jemma presses his hand more firmly to her stomach just to be sure he doesn’t try. “What’s wrong with him touching me?”

“Nothing,” Daisy says quickly. Jemma notices her grip on the other Jemma has become slightly restraining. “I’m sure your Ward is perfectly nice and not an evil Nazi traitor, it’s just that ours kind of – is.”

Jemma can feel eyes—the doubles’, Skye’s, Coulson’s—but they’re not really on _her_ at all, they’re focused on Grant. The accusation sits heavy in the air of the tiny exam room.

“Well,” she says coldly, “it’s a good thing he’s not yours, isn’t it? Come on, Grant, I imagine Fitz could use our help.”

Fitz will need nothing of the sort, but Jemma would rather not remain here any longer. Grant makes a weak protest—a soft “Jem,” that causes her double to flinch—but allows her to pull him out of the room and down the hall.

 

=====

 

Fitz really _doesn’t_ need any help—he’s already got Trip to fetch and carry—but he sees the storm cloud hovering over Jemma the moment she walks in and gives her something to do just to keep her occupied. The monolith stands watch while they work, its grey and blue face seeming to watch them with the same intensity Grant and Trip do.

He stays, Grant. Even though he hates this room, he keeps close. Or perhaps it’s _because_ he hates it that he stays. It would be just like him to remain where he’s uncomfortable simply to protect her from his own fears.

“Um.” It’s her double. Jemma heard her arrive of course—Coulson is doing that thing where he pretends everything is fine and is covering up his discomfort with a lengthy history lesson on the monolith’s containment by SHIELD, so it would have been impossible to miss them coming in. Still, having her so close … it sends a shiver up her spine.

“I wanted to apologize,” her double says quickly, forcing the words out in a rush. She drops down when she says them, resting one knee on the floor beside Jemma so they’re level with each other. “I think it might have been facing Hive again but-” She shakes herself. “No. There’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have assumed your Ward was like ours.”

“No,” Jemma agrees. “You shouldn’t have.”

“But-” She glances aside, to where Grant is leaning against a rickety old table too unsteady for use as a work bench. She shifts a little closer, making their conversation a private one. “If you ever decide he’s not what you want, there’s always Fitz-”

“No,” Jemma says, more lightly this time. She’s still mad—more now that this interloper is trying to direct her love life with no knowledge of it whatsoever—but it’s been so long since anyone raised Fitz as a real possibility that she can’t help but laugh. “We always had one of those relationships—‘when we’re thirty, if neither of us has found our soulmates’—but that was more practicality than anything. There was never any spark.”

“All right,” she says, accepting that easily enough that Jemma suspects she feels similarly about her own Fitz, “but there’s a lovely man somewhere out there named Will Daniels. In our world he was on Maveth with Hive but if you can find him, I’m sure-”

“But he wouldn’t be my soulmate.”

The other Jemma’s mouth snaps shut and her forehead wrinkles in an expression that’s so familiar and yet so alien now she’s on this side of it.

Jemma sighs, realizing what’s wrong here. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have them.”

She sets her tools aside and turns over her wrist so that her timer is plainly visible. 08:22:15 16:41 PDT. Barely eight months ago but sometimes it feels like years. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.

“In our world, soulmates are a recognized scientific phenomenon. This is the exact date and time I met Grant.” She pauses, her awareness stretching out over the room. Things have changed, supplies and furniture have moved, but now she thinks about it, she might be sitting in the very spot it happened. She sets aside the remembrance; this isn’t the time. “He’s the only soulmate I’ll ever have. So I’m sure your Mr. Daniels is very nice, but I’ll stick with my Grant, thank you.”

Her double only stares, first at Jemma and then at her wrist. Long enough that Jemma finally returns to her work—and her double’s stare remains fixed on the spot her wrist used to occupy. It’s almost entertaining.

 

=====

 

Eventually the other Jemma does wander off, likely to seek solace with Daisy. Soon after, the assembly is done.

“Thanks, guys,” Daisy says as she climbs awkwardly into the ring that will contain the monolith once it liquefies. “It’s been-” she glances in Jemma and Grant’s direction while helping her Jemma over- “horrifying.”

“Please don’t ever come back,” Coulson says brightly.

“We wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, with a smile just as wide as his. More softly she says, “God, I hope we don’t dream of it.”

The other Jemma shudders, but it’s possible that’s due more to the tremors running through the floor as the machine powers on.

“Ugh, I forgot how much I hate this,” Daisy says, holding the other Jemma’s hand tight. “Oh! Hey!” She turns her head to look back at them. “Skye, remember: don’t try to hold it in.”

“Don’t try to hold what in?” Trip asks.

“Apparently,” Skye says, nearly bouncing with excitement, “I have superpowers.” 

Whatever the feelings on that, they’re lost when the monolith collapses. Five tons of stone drop down in a wave, swallowing up their guests and taking them back where they came from.

Fitz turns a dial. The shaking stops. The monolith becomes a stone again. And Jemma drags Grant back to their quarters, leaving the others to deal with clean up.

Her shoes she drops on her way to the bed. She means to pick them up later in the day, but Grant moves them aside while he follows behind her. He catches her sweater when she means to drop it on a chair and returns it to the closet. Then he strips off his shirt and joins her in bed.

He wraps around her, arms almost constricting around her waist, face buried in her hair. For a while they stay like that, too close and not close enough, before he relaxes enough she can find a comfortable position for sleep.

Once she does, she says, “I don’t like her.”

His breath is a warm puff of laughter on her face. “Really.”

She can’t see anything in the dark, but she opens her eyes all the same to ask, “Did you?”

His lips brush her forehead. “Not like I like you.”

She nestles a little closer to him. “Good.”

Maybe it’s selfish or just odd, but she thinks she’d always worry if he’d loved that other one before her. She didn’t love the Grant Ward of this world, didn’t even know him, and he certainly wasn’t her soulmate.

“The things they said-”

He stiffens. “I can explain.”

She nuzzles his throat, twists up to kiss where the rough stubble is coming in; international travel means he hasn’t shaved in the better part of a week. “I don’t care. I don’t care who you were there. I only care about who you are here.” She turns her wrist so she can see the glow in the dark. She misled her double earlier. She was never waiting on her soulmate, never had any hope of finding him when all her life her timer was black—until the moment Grant came tumbling from the monolith and knocked her to the ground. “And here, you’re mine.”

He brings her wrist to his lips, kisses the thin plastic. “And you’re mine.”

There’s something heavy to the words, on the verge of dark and frightening. They hated him, those women, enough that they couldn’t stand to see a man they thought was only his double touching her.

But he saved her from her loneliness. Who else could have done that but a man who had ruined all his hopes of ever being loved?

She doesn’t care what her double thinks of him. He’s everything she ever could have dreamed of and she has no intention of letting him slip away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally a oneshot but I've added a brief chapter two detailing how these events impacted the other Jemma.


	2. monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other Jemma, after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely nobody asked for this but I got an out of the blue comment on this fic today and was overcome with an urge to tell the other Jemma's aftermath.

Jemma blames Ward for this. Her Ward, the other Ward, all Wards everywhere in the multiverse, it really doesn’t matter. Grant Ward is to blame.

He distracted her, in that other world. She was so disturbed by the sight of him hanging all over her double that she was desperate to get home. She didn’t stop to consider the circumstances that led to her and Daisy being swept up by the monolith in the first place or how things might have progressed from there. She didn’t even unholster her sidearm before returning—not that it would have done her much good; monolith travel is disorienting at best and she was more likely to have dropped her weapon in the transportation than have it been of any use. But still, she could have tried.

Daisy, of course, had her powers. She was able to quake James into a wall even while she was still on her hands and knees. But James was only one threat and Daisy missed the second. Jemma saw him though, saw the way Hive’s predatory gaze twisted Will’s beautiful face, saw him raise his hand almost casually to attack.

She could have stopped him—or at the very least distracted him long enough for Daisy to turn her attention to him—but she’d been so concerned with getting _away_ from the hateful sight of herself and Ward that she forgot what even more hateful things might be waiting for her here. And now both she and Daisy are suffering for it.

“You need to be more careful,” Daisy says. She’s kneeling at Jemma’s feet, a first aid kit open next to her. Her hands are gentle as they unclasp the cuffs that have rubbed Jemma’s wrists raw. As they drop to the wooden floor, Daisy’s mouth tips in a wry smile. “Hey, that’s supposed to be your line.”

This is an old argument with Daisy, friendly and comfortable. Jemma fusses over her every injury—as is her _job—_ and in return Daisy teases Jemma when she herself gets hurt. It was how they broke the ice after Jemma’s return from Maveth, when months of separation might have stretched their friendship to its limits. So there’s an expected response Jemma is meant to give to show she recognizes it’s only teasing.

But Daisy’s been compromised. Hive’s somehow managed to brainwash her. Jemma doesn’t even know to what extent she’s talking to Daisy herself. Maybe she’s somewhere in there, locked in a body she can’t control and screaming for freedom but unable to be heard. Making that private joke between the two of them to this woman, whatever she is, might be a betrayal of the real Daisy.

Hurt flickers across Daisy’s features and she ducks her head, keeping her face down while she cleans and wraps Jemma’s wrists.

Jemma hates this. She _hates_ this. More than she hated that other world, she hates this one where the people she love suffer because of her. First Will and now Daisy, not to mention the heartbreak she can see on Fitz’s face every day or the way it must hurt her parents that their only daughter never speaks to them anymore. Everyone she loves, she hurts. Maybe that’s why.

She turns her left wrist over, disrupting Daisy’s work. The other Jemma showed that timer she wore as proof that Ward was her soulmate. Does that mean that he’s also Jemma’s? Is there some cosmic force that has determined Grant Ward is her best possible match? It would make sense. A monster for a monster.

“You are troubled.”

Daisy scrambles to her feet to face Hive where he stands in the doorway. Her face alight with a smile wider than any Jemma’s seen her wear since she was shot. Hive smiles beatifically at her, cupping her cheek and thanking her for her work. Jemma’s gut churns.

She averts her eyes, focusing on the benign landscape on the wall. This house is furnished, isolated. She wonders what happened to the previous tenants.

“I think she’s still shaken up.”

“The other world,” Hive says.

Jemma looks up sharply. Daisy told him?

But why wouldn’t she? She’s obviously Hive’s puppet now. Any good instinct that would keep her from telling him anything and everything is either gone or buried.

“Leave us,” he says. “I’d like a moment alone with Jemma.”

Daisy hesitates, but only for a moment. Jemma wonders if she should take heart in that.

But those hopes are shut out by the firm closing of the door. She’s alone with Hive.

Her heart rabbits in her chest when he sits beside her and her hand shakes when he takes it from her lap.

“I wish you wouldn’t be afraid of me, Jemma,” he says, sounding so much like Will it slices across her heart.

He brings her wrist to his lips, planting a gentle kiss to the reddened skin. Her breath catches in her throat. He finishes wrapping the bandage, the steady motions allowing her the time she needs to find her voice.

“You enslaved Daisy,” she says. “I watched you eat a man alive. And you _murdered_ the man I-” She bites the words back. Bad enough she never said them to Will, she won’t let this monster know how deeply he’s hurt her.

Her heart skips a beat at that thought and her mind dances back to that other world while Hive’s painfully familiar hands explore the exposed skin of her arms.

“I killed a man who threatened you,” he says. “Swiftly. Cleanly.” He sounds so reasonable, so sure of his logic. It’s maddening. “Daisy is free to do as she pleases, perhaps for the first time in her life. And what pleases her is to please me.”

“You _brainwashed_ her.”

“She is happy-”

“To comply.”

“And unharmed. She no longer feels constantly the pain of her losses—her parents, her childhood, SHIELD—because she has found a greater joy. Will you tell me I am wrong to grant her such peace?”

For the first time, Jemma meets his eyes. She knows Will suffered greatly and she knows that aged him, but there were times she’d meet his eyes and see an almost youthful vulnerability there. He was just a man, lost and alone and afraid. Hive isn’t any of those things. He is old, ancient really, and it shows in his gaze. It’s almost comforting, how that changes the face of the man she loved.

“As for Will-” he lifts a hand to brush over her hair- “for that I am sorry. I sought to keep you for him and succeeded only in losing him for you.” His mouth twists in a heartening smile and he squeezes her hand still held in his lap. “But I will free you as I have Daisy. My plans are already in motion and I have _hope_ that soon they will come to fruition. I would love for you to take part in my success, but I am afraid I know you too well to trust you—yet. You bring mischief wherever you go-” He’s teasing her, but the words only remind her of her earlier realization and her flinch cuts him off.

His eyes narrow in concern and his hand falls to her neck, kneading her tense muscles the way Will used to do.

“Jemma,” he says seriously, “what’s wrong?”

Maybe it’s Will’s voice. Maybe it’s the strain of the day thinning her capacity for reason. But Jemma thinks most of the blame goes to Grant Ward. If it hadn’t been for him she wouldn’t have been caught in the first place and, even if she was, she certainly wouldn’t be so emotionally disjointed as to reach out and willingly touch the creature that spent months terrorizing her. She wouldn’t take his face in her hands or pull him to her for a kiss. She wouldn’t push his coat over his shoulders or let him undress her. She wouldn’t let him press her down onto the bed. And she wouldn’t think, while he moves inside her and, for just a moment, fulfills his promise of taking her pain away, that she deserves this; a monster for a monster.

 


End file.
